"Musings of an unknown helo driver"
Anything that screws its way into the sky flies according to unnatural
principals.
You never want to sneak up behind an old, high-time helicopter pilot
and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely
whimper...then get up and smack you.
There are no old helicopters laying around airports like you see old
airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there are
not many old, high-time helicopter pilots hanging around airports
either so the first issue is problematic.
You can always tell a helicopter pilot in anything moving: a train, an
airplane, a car or a boat. They never smile, they are always listening
to the machine and they always hear something they think is not right.
Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like
"spring loaded", while waiting for pieces of their ship to fall off.
Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered
reckless and should be avoided. Flying a helicopter at any altitude or
condition that precludes a landing in less than 20 seconds is
considered outright foolhardy.
Remember in a helicopter you have about 1 second to lower the
collective in an engine failure before the craft becomes unrecoverable.
Once you've failed this maneuver the machine flies about as well as a
20 case Coke machine. Even a perfectly executed autorotation only gives
you a glide ratio slightly better than that of a brick.
180 degree autorotations are a violent and aerobatic maneuver in my
opinion and should be avoided.
When your wings are leading, lagging, flapping, precessing and moving
faster than your fuselage there's something unnatural going on. Is this
the way men were meant to fly?
While hovering, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on the
collective while twisting the throttle, push with your left foot (more
torque) and move the stick left (more translating tendency) to hold
your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite in that
order.Sometimes in wind you do this many times each second. Don't you
think that's a strange way to fly?
For Helicopters: You never want to feel a sinking feeling in your gut
(low "g" pushover) while flying a two bladed under slung teetering
rotor system. You are about to do a snap-roll to the right and crash.
For that matter, any remotely aerobatic maneuver should be avoided in a
Huey.
Don't push your luck. It will run out soon enough anyway.
If everything is working fine on your helicopter consider yourself
temporarily lucky. Something is about to break.
Having said all this, I must admit that flying in a helicopter is one
of the most satisfying and exhilarating experiences I have ever
enjoyed: skimming over the tops of trees at 100 knots is something we
should all be able to do at least once.
And remember the fighter pilot's prayer: "Lord I pray for the eyes of
an eagle, the heart of a lion and the balls of a combat helicopter
pilot."
Many years later I know that it was sometimes anything but fun, but now
it IS something to brag about for those of us who survived the
experience.
Author unknown
